Tropical Depression by Laurence Shames

least?"
    Tommy finished his beer and popped another. A chicken squawked in the weeds. "No," he said.
    Murray fought off feeling miffed. "Why don't ya wanna know the name?"
    "I'm, like, superstitious, okay? If there's ever a casino, you'll say the name, I'll tell you if I like it."
    "He doesn't want to know the name," Murray said to the sky. He leaned back in his tilted chair, feeling like an astronaut
    "And this bubbala thing," said Tommy. "I don't know about this. Who ever heard of an Indian called bubbala "
    *****
    That night, Murray took a long and itch-relieving soak in his master-bath Jacuzzi, then, from bed, he called his wife.
    He wanted the atmosphere to be just right. He fluffed up all his pillows, made sure he had an unobstructed line of sight through his open curtains, past his balcony, to the yellow moonlight gleaming on the Florida Straits. He put a glass of milk and a little stack of cookies on the nightstand. Then he dialed.
    "Franny? Murray," he said, when she picked up. '"Zit too late to call?"
    "In hours," she said, "or years?"
    He relished her tartness, burrowed deeper into his pillows. "What reflexes!" he said. "Bustin' my chops before y'even say hello. How are you?"
    "Hold on," she said. "I've got Streetcar on the video, lemme turn it off."
    Murray blissfully ate half a cookie. When his wife came back to the phone, he said, "Marlon Brando? Marlon Brando you'll turn off for me?"
    "Him I can always turn on again. How's your depression?"
    "Much better," said the Bra King. "It's been days since I've been publicly catatonic. Only problem, I'm getting low on pills."
    "Maybe you could stop the pills by now."
    "What're you, crazy?"
    "Zinc is good for mood things," Franny said.
    "Zinc is good for making garbage cans not rust," said Murray. "Medicine, they don't put it on garbage cans. Medicine, the doctor calls a fancy drugstore, you pick it up, there's a price tag says a hundred dollars stapled to the bag."
    "I thought you might be more open-minded than you used to be, Murray. You told me you were changing."
    Too late, the Bra King realized he'd been losing points. He frowned at his half-eaten cookie, squirmed against his pillows. "I am changing," he insisted. "Just not about zinc."
    "What about, then?" asked his wife.
    Murray thought and sighed, looked out the window at the moonstruck water. "I haven't checked the stock tables for three, four weeks. How's that?"
    "I'd call it less than a breakthrough."
    "Ooh," the Bra King said. "I got one: I bought a bicycle, I hardly use the car anymore."
    "Really?" Franny said, and he could tell she was impressed. "You must look pretty funny on a bicycle."
    "I guess I do. I haven't really thought about it."
    "Haven't thought about it? Murray, that's progress."
    Now he was happy, he rewarded himself with the rest of his cookie. "Yeah," he said, "I guess it is."
    There was a silence, it went on long enough for Murray to fear that he was losing his momentum. He groped for more evidence to lay before his ex, more proof that he was not the same old cranky selfish lout he knew she took him for.
    "But wait," he said, "I haven't told ya the best one. I have a friend down here, guess who he is?"
    "How should I know who he is?"
    "He's an Indian. Great guy. Bitter. He's got a claim against the government, I'm helping him pursue it."
    "Helping someone, Murray? You?"
    "Hey," he said, "what's right is right. With all the shitty things that have been done to these people?"
    For a moment Franny said nothing. Suspicion edged into her voice. "Murray, I was married to you for twenty-one years, the most political thing I ever saw you do was buy stamps. All of a sudden you're an activist'"
    "I'm not an activist," the Bra King modestly replied. "It's a personal thing, one individual."
    Franny paused again, put a skeptical finger on her lower lip. "There's a business angle in this, isn't there?"
    Murray's voice was a low wail of offended virtue. "Franny! The guy wants this little island where his